The Shattered Monarch

Wandering around the web as you do I stumbled upon and artist who was creating artwork with butterflies. Actually using butterflies! They print using a inkjet on to the wings. This is amazing but part of me thinks perhaps a little cruel. The page is here ... Butterfly Mimesis.

The artwork did however get those cogs in my head turning. Inspired I set about finding photos from Google to manipulate with photoshop. As a result, The Shattered Monarch was born.

Cat Dreams

This is a picture of my cat Elphaba who loves posing for the camera. I'm pretty sure she watches America's next top model and takes notes!

I've manipulated the photo with photoshop and included elements of a viney jungle surrounding.

I kind of think that's the way she see's the world; as this amazing  playground to explore.

Juliet

This is a still from the end of the 5th season of Lost where Juliet sadly dies. Not before, however, exploding a nuke that throws everyone back to the right point in time.

Again I used photoshop to combine textures, different photos and used different blending modes.

The awesomeness of Lost

So I'm wandering around the Internet and as usual end up at youtube. However, whilst refraining from looking for videos of cute cats, talking cats, angry cats or sociopathic cats I stumbled upon some videos that I liked ages ago... The final few scenes from lost.

I'll not go to in depth as I wouldn't want to spoil the Show for people who haven't experienced its undeniable awesomeness. But my reaction to the videos quite shocked me. Tears streamed down my face (especially the bit with Vincent the dog).

 This all lead to me losing about an hour to video clips where the shows characters remembered their lives on the island. What a truly amazing show and story! I'm so pleased we stuck with the show through the complicated parts; so worth it.

So here are the final two scenes...

With fresh inspiration I decided I wanted to create some Lost related artwork. I've every intention of doing some drawings but to begin with I found some stills and played around with them using Photoshop.

This still is of Jack and Vincent and an incredibly powerful moment in the last scene.

Dahlia

I a photoshop sort of mood so flicked through some magazines and had a go at merging textures and photos. All the files for the tutorial were on the CD but being me I couldn't be bothered to go upstairs and find it. So I used Photographs from the net instead and textures from media militia.

It wasn't particularly difficult nor did it take very long. I'm liking the result and already have Ideas of how I can use some of these techniques for other projects.

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Hands

Look at the hand! Look at the hand!

The portraits not perfect  but I'm quite pleased with the hand which I can proudly say looks quite hand like!  That's opposed to the mangled messes which normally result in me drawing hands!

I'm not saying it's perfect (I know its not) but I could pick apart a picture until I can longer see the good bits. I'm not going to do that any more than I already have. :-)

 Look at the hand!

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Abs

Sadly, this in no way a self portrait. However, I did enjoy drawing this picture.

I used a photograph from a magazine called Attitude as inspiration. The photograph  was of a full length model but I chose to focus only on one element of the photo. Drawing only on the abdominal section allowed me to play around with shading.

Also, drawing only this part of the model enabled me to completely avoid drawing hands!  Maybe that's what I should focus on next HANDS!!! I'm pretty certain if I can draw them I'll pretty much be able to draw anything. Need to get practising though because the ones I produce at the moment look like they belong to someone who's had an accident involving their hands being mangled in machinery.

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Playing With Photoshop

Went for a lovely walk today and took some photos; most of them of flowers but a few of paths and disused roads. It was beautifully sunny and bright a most enjoyable wander.

When I got home I played around on Photoshop. I wanted to make a bright looking image of a disused road that leads to an old quarry look darker... as though it were taken at night.  I think I managed.

representing

A lot of people ask what the symbols in my artwork represent. Sometimes they don't really represent anything but just kind of grew organically as I drew them; sometimes they represent an idea or an animal , and sometimes they represent people, as in this piece if artwork.

When drawing this I'm representing a situation and was very focused throughout the whole process. I definitely feel that expressing myself artistically kind of gets those emotions and thoughts out of me so I can leave them behind and move on.

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Growth

I always enjoy doing these sort of pieces and lose myself whilst doing them.  I used pencils and a rubber to clean up.

I just let the composition grow. I wanted to create the appearance of depth so layered up parts, which I think works well.

Whilst drawing this I got the idea for next piece which has more personal meaning I'll upload that tomorrow.

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Performance art

I saw this video linked from the bloggess' blog a couple of weeks and I thought I'd share. It's  undeniably a little strange but also kind of brilliant. The costumes used kind of remind me of Lady Gaga and the baby mask is seriously scary! :-)

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Progress

This took me ages to get going on. I found it difficult to think of an initial idea. Eventually I opted for a growth and change sort of theme. I just used pencils for this.

Photography

Photography isn't something I'm into in a big way but I've been playing around.  What I'm quite enjoying is then further tinkering with them in photoshop.  

I've found that photoshop is great for sharpening images and for also blurring the background components. This is allowing me to get effects I'd ordinarily only get with an SLR camera. Photoshop also allows me to crop images slightly altering the composition and positioning of focal points adding interest to the resulting photograph

Procrastination

I think I may have actually broken through a wall! I just stopped producing any art work at all.  I didn't do this intentionally it just happened. I'm thinking our rapidly approaching wedding and some of the stress this caused is partly to blame but any how...

I've started drawing and creating finally and will upload some new artwork soon :-). Now I'm off to start some more!

New piece

Been working on this when I've had time this week. hopefully for a friend if they like it.  Its not quite finished here I want to even out some of the paint work and add a little here and there but it's very nearly done.

It's acrylic on canvas. The colour scheme and style being picked by my friend to hopefully go in a specific room. It was much less scary painting on the canvas this time but what they say is true... the first brush stroke is the hardest.

Personally, I'm really pleased with this piece. Just kinda let myself go and it sort of formed itself. I'm now thinking I need to do more on canvas for myself. Also wondering If I could sell some... that would be amazing!

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Abstract Flowers

This is one of my favourite pictures. I love the way the pastel has blended on the petals. The black work was all done with an ordinary biro.

I get really lost in this sort of  work :)

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pencil sketch

One of my older works. I used pencil and graphite sticks;  the picture was I think I found using google images.


Overall, I was pleased with this piece. Not bad for a first try at drawing a nude figure. I was especially pleased with the veins on the left arm and generally with the shading. I think maybe the left hand could have done with extra work and some of the shadow work isn't quite right.


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Discovery

This is a piece called "Discovery";  named after and Tinie Tempah's album. This is part of the challenge/project I have set for myself where I produce 30 pieces based on album titles.


I being quite a while since I've last drawn an animal I thought I'd draw a cat discovering something. On the whole I'm quite pleased with the sketch though I do think the eyes are a little close together.

Lights

This is a piece called "Lights";  named after and Ellie Goulding's album. This is part of the challenge/project I have set for myself where I produce 30 pieces based on album titles.


This piece is a photoshop composition. I found the image of the hand using google and placed the orb, which I created from scratch. I then tinted the hand using a tinted layer.


I found it hard to place the orb in a believable position. I'd like to play around with this some more.


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Older Artwork

These are some of my older pieces; there are more that I will upload and share gradually. These were drawn using photographs from the BBC wildlife magazine which has amazing animal photography in it.

"The Meerkats" is a an important piece for me because it was the first picture I drew that made me feel like I had some talent that could be fostered. It was also drawn on a day that proved to be a turning point in my life. It was on that day, I discovered that no matter how much was going on around me I couldn't control; there was a place I could disappear into to escape. Art became my sanctuary and helped me heal.

"The Badger" I drew from a tiny photo that was not much larger than a passport sized photo. I was really pleased with how it turned out.